Journalism stops for no one. Our colleagues at the Capital Gazette showed us all that.

There was a photo forwarded on Facebook Friday morning, showing two men at the Capital Gazette working at makeshift tables in a parking garage, because their Annapolis newsroom was sealed off as a murder scene.

In a half-century of reporting, I haven’t gotten all misty-eyed about the First Amendment and the public’s right to know. This is a job that some of us do better than others, a product that’s better or worse on different days.

But there was something about that little picture – newsroom staffers putting out the paper, not knowing how many of their colleagues were dead or wounded – that made me very proud of this business. There ought to be a word for things that are remarkable but, at the same time, not at all surprising.

It’s what news operations do. As long as they are physically able, they’ll get the best story possible. I’m sure some Gazette survivors went home as soon as the shooting stopped; maybe some won’t return, and who would blame them? Many probably ditched whatever they’d been working on and ran to see if they might help the wounded. And you can be sure that one or two were making notes or trying to think of a camera angle for a picture of the gunman, even while they hid under their desks.

Some probably finished a very long day’s work, went home and hugged their families, poured a stiff drink or two, did interviews with local TV, or just sat and stared out the window for a while. There’s no right or wrong way to handle something like that.

The fact that it happened at a newsroom, rather than an insurance company or department store, or a high school or a nightclub, doesn’t make it worse. A lot of people were quick to blame President Trump and others who irresponsibly lie about the press, but they’ve nurtured the atmosphere in which the five murders occurred – they’re not the cause.

I don’t know anyone at the Capital Gazette, but I’d bet nobody even thought of suspending publication. So long as there were people to do the job, even if they had to come in on a day off or abandon some other story, they were on it. Papers in nearby towns would have sent help, if needed.

The theater ain’t got nothing on journalism, in believing that the show must go on.

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Please don’t think I’m just bragging on my trade. There are lots of jobs in which pride and tradition will overcome adversity – cops pitching in when one of their own is down, educators going above and beyond to help struggling students, different companies and agencies joining forces to help fire victims at Eastpoint, for instance.

I’ve never known ghastly events like we’ve seen in Maryland. A hurricane hit the low-lying land around the Miami Herald building when I was a copy clerk in college and everybody worked around the clock to get out the paper, such as it was, for a couple days. We’ve all known journalists who had family emergencies or personal hardships that they worked through, and got the story they were working on.

I’ve written columns before about how the movies use a newsroom as a dramatic device, a window into the events that make up the plot, but somehow they never quite get it right. Those tough, hard-drinking, wise-cracking reporters and editors are cliché characters in a lot of films. But one thing Hollywood does get right about our trade is the importance of getting the story.

The government can lie to us, the public relations people can puff up some nothing tidbit their clients want to see publicized, people suddenly thrust into the news can try to hide, but sooner or later the story will get done.

A lot of times, we don’t do it as well as we’d like, or as well as you’d like. Fortunately, ghastly events like Annapolis are rare. But it’s times like this – even after all these years – that make me proud of this business, with all its many faults.

I hope the Pulitzer committee will make a special award, or issue a “Remarkable But Not Surprising” citation, to the Capital Gazette for putting out Friday’s paper. No one could have blamed reporters and editors if they’d taken a day to ease their pain.

But I’d bet nobody even suggested that.

Bill Cotterell is a columnist with the Tallahassee Democrat, part of USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, which includes The News-Press. He can be contacted at bcotterell@tallahassee.com.